Active Ink Software Blogtag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-5214102013-01-17T10:02:54-08:00TypePadMake way for the MEGA-tablet!tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8342e90e053ef017c35eb9584970b2013-01-17T10:02:54-08:002013-01-17T10:06:57-08:00A recent trip to Best Buy revealed the existence of a whole new tablet category we never knew existed -- the MEGA tablet. Halfway between the biggest ultrabook and lie-flat all-in-one, this family of giants tablets sport 21 - 27"...MB

A recent trip to Best Buy revealed the existence of a whole new tablet category we never knew existed -- the MEGA tablet. Halfway between the biggest ultrabook and lie-flat all-in-one, this family of giants tablets sport 21 - 27" screens and their own batteries for limited independent use! They have capacitive touchscreens and (obviously) huge, bright displays. They weigh as much or more than the average desktop monitor and thus are only semi-portable.

So far, this family of Mega-tabs seems to have only two members: The Sony VAIO Tap 20 and the Lenovo "Coffeetable".

We're not quite sure how you would use these massive tablets yet, but at least they aren't all that expensive. The Sony 20" machine comes in under a grand and the gargantuan new Lenovo 27" "coffeetable" computer is expected to be under $2 g's. The Coffeetable tablet (or should we say "Coffeetablet") will supposedly allow four independent users to simultaneously work on its surface in four different orientations!

One big drawback for Active Ink users though -- neither one comes with an active digitizing stylus that we can see.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1" tablet -- it would work, if we programmed for Android!tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8342e90e053ef017d400f8191970c2013-01-16T14:46:47-08:002013-01-16T14:46:47-08:00We've just laid our hands on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1" tablet for the first time and we came away quite impressed with this little Android device. It is unique among Android tabs in that it sports a good active...MB

We've just laid our hands on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1" tablet for the first time and we came away quite impressed with this little Android device. It is unique among Android tabs in that it sports a good active digitizer (Wacom?) that can be used as a writing implement as well as a cursor/pointer/mouse substitute. Furthermore, it sports its own handwriting recognition engine that can turn ink into text for the input of handwritten data into browser windows etc.! The output of the pen is smooth and precise and the handwriting recognition seemed to be at least as good as that found on Windows 7.

In short, the Galaxy Note has all of the requirements we feel are necessary in an Active Ink platform. Unfortunately, we don't yet offer an Android version of Active Ink and since only one Android tablet (the Galaxy Note) has passed our platform muster so far, we're not exactly jumping up and down to do so. But if more new tablet following in the footsteps of the Note, you never know!

Tsunami of new Windows 8 Tablets on the horizon! tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8342e90e053ef017d3ef8ea12970c2012-12-19T14:02:51-08:002013-01-16T14:35:55-08:00Thanks to the Microsoft Surface tablets (seen below), everyone is talking about all the new Windows 8 tablets that will soon be arriving. We are excited about them because it looks like manufacturers are moving in the direction we want....MB

Thanks to the Microsoft Surface tablets (seen below), everyone is talking about all the new Windows 8 tablets that will soon be arriving. We are excited about them because it looks like manufacturers are moving in the direction we want. Namely, most of these new Windows 8 tablets having attachable keyboards for data input and they seem to be trending towards the good Wacom digitizing pens and away from the weaker N-Trig pens that we find glitchy. And all of these improvements are coming in light, thin, battery-sipping packages that are priced under $1000!

Clearly we haven't tested them all yet, and you'll need to stay tuned at we give you our opinions of each of the new machines we find acceptable. One tip we can share with you now is this. You will need to be careful with Windows RT and go for FULL WINDOWS 8! You will be tempted by RT tablets' lower prices, but in this case you really do get what you pay for. Windows RT is a significantly dumbed-down operating system for slower, cheaper processors. Although Windows RT has handwriting recognition and you can input text using your finger as a substitute stylus, most of the cheaper Windows RT tablets will not offer or ship with digital styluses. You'll need to bump up to full Windows 8 to get a good system with an integrated stylus, a feature which is critical to the performance of Active Ink.

Never fear, though. It looks as though you will be able to get a full Windows 8 tablet with the good Wacom digitizing stylus for just over $500. Dell's Latitude 10 (seen below) is ready to ship at a start price of just $649. And nearly all of the Windows 8 tablets and ultrabook variants we've looked at so far have a stylus option. When you combine this with the greatly improved keyboard/covers that they offer, they make for great Active Ink platforms

A new contender for best tablet under $1500 - Samsung XE700tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8342e90e053ef016767a825e8970b2012-06-18T10:45:54-07:002012-06-18T10:45:54-07:00Those of you who follow this blog know that we at Active Ink have certain prejudices when it comes to tablets that will run our software. We like the smooth, error-free Wacom digitizer. We like powerful processors and big, bright...MB

Those of you who follow this blog know that we at Active Ink have certain prejudices when it comes to tablets that will run our software. We like the smooth, error-free Wacom digitizer. We like powerful processors and big, bright screens and long battery life packed into a thin, light, rugged shell. And we like all this for under $1500.

Until recently, our tablet wish list seemed to be an impossible dream. Now Samsung has released their Xe700 (7 series) tablet and we'll be darned if we can find anything wrong with it. It uses the Wacom digitizer, not the dreaded N-Trig pen that hampers its Fujitsu, Dell, and Motion counterparts. It has a beautiful bright screen that is just a shade smaller than the Asus. It more than doubles the Asus's paltry 3.5 hour battery life while using the same Intel i5 processor found on the Asus. At the same time the Samsung has a SIGNIFICANTLY thinner and lighter case that the Asus.

The only downside with the Xe700 that we can find is that its price is actually RISING due to customer demand and the lack of competition in the market. Samsung seems to know that in our small niche they offer the best product. Just after release, we could find these tablets new for about $900 and used for about $700. Now you'll be hard pressed to find a used one at any price and new ones go for about $1100 to $1200.

All-in-One desktops not all the same when it comes to inking.tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8342e90e053ef015436b231cd970c2011-11-07T08:29:18-08:002011-11-08T09:22:57-08:00Recently we had the chance to test drive a number of 23"all-in-one touchscreen desktops at Best Buy and we were shocked to learn that their performance as Active Ink Platforms varied widely. Previously, we had reviewed the HP 310 and...MB

Recently we had the chance to test drive a number of 23"all-in-one touchscreen desktops at Best Buy and we were shocked to learn that their performance as Active Ink Platforms varied widely. Previously, we had reviewed the HP 310 and 610 Touchmsmart machines and we found their responsiveness to both finger touch and stylus touch to be superb. The HP machines still offer the best response to handwritten input using both the finger and a stylus, but we can no longer give a blanket "thumbs up" to any large screen all-in-one desktop or any device using the NextWindow optical touch system. Some of the machines we tested were quite poor at recognizing handwritten input and will be placed in our "Not Recommended" category.

Hp has replaced the 310/610 generation of machines with new models and in the meantime a host of other manufacturers have released similarly sized and powered all-in-ones. Among the new all-in-ones we tested were 23" models from Toshiba, Dell, Gateway, Samsung and HP's new 520 model. Most were outfitted with NextWindow's optical touchscreen system that we found to be quite precise when mated to the HP 310 & 610. This system still performs well on the HP machines we tested, however we had significantly less pleasant experiences on the Dell, Gateway and Toshiba machines. Our input error rate was very high on them, with stray marks, skipped spaces and unnatural-looking scripts abounding.

As you might imagine, these errors caused our handwriting recognition on the Dell, Gateway and Toshiba machines to be rather poor and we would rate them only as "marginally acceptable" platforms for Active Ink. The Samsung machine, which uses a traditional capacitive touchscreen like many smaller tablets passed none of our handwriting tests, proving that capacitive touchscreens' imprecision is not due to screen or font size. Their imprecision of input makes them inadequate platforms for electronic handwriting no matter how big their screens are. As a result, the Samsung 23" all-in-one is "Not Recommended" as an active ink platform.

We are at a loss to explain why HP offers a significantly better inking experience than its competition in the 23" all-in-one arena, but they are the clear winner in our minds. After their recent failures with the Touchpad and Slate 500, it's good to see them come out on top again.

A Ferrari of a Tablet for under $1500 -- the Asus eeeSlate EP121tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8342e90e053ef0162fbecf5b9970d2011-10-26T10:50:33-07:002011-10-26T10:53:10-07:00Two assumptions you should have when shopping for a Ferrari: One) It will go very fast, and Two) It will get poor gas mileage. Recently we drove a "Ferrari" in the world of Windows Slates and those two assumptions proved...MB

Two assumptions you should have when shopping for a Ferrari: One) It will go very fast, and Two) It will get poor gas mileage.

Recently we drove a "Ferrari" in the world of Windows Slates and those two assumptions proved just as true for tablets as they are for Testarossas. The tablet-Ferrari we tried was the Asus EP121. It's beautiful and it screams down the information superhighway, but all that flash comes at the cost of battery life. You'll be hard pressed to get 4 hours of active computing on one battery charge no matter how you adjust your settings. But then again, it's hard to carp about short battery life when you've having such a good time during those 4 hours!

The EP121 can be had for about $1200-$1500, which either makes it the least expensive of the "old school" Windows slates or the most expensive of the newer Ipad-inspired slates. We chose to look it at as the top of the crop inthe latest generation of "inexpensive" slates, a category in which we place the Motion CL900, the Fujitsu q550, and the HP Slate 500. The EP121 is a hundred dollars or so more expensive that the Motion CL900 and perhaps $400 more than the HP.

We think the expense is well justified because the Asus is the only device in its category to sport the superior Wacom digitizing stylus (instead of the inferior N-trig stylus) and it also comes with an Intel Core i5 processor (instead of a weaker Atom variant). It also has a big bright 12.1 inch display,and it ships from the factory with a leather folio case & an easy-to-use Microsoft bluetooth keyboard. All these welcome goodies would be extra purchases with any other device.

When surfing the web, streaming video, or acting as a real computer running Office and other memory-hogging programs, the Asus runs laps around its Atom powered competition. It does everything much faster and it flaunts everything it does on a bigger, brighter display. When serving as a platform for Active Ink's e-forms, some of the Asus's extra horsepower is unnecessary because AI doesn't hog memory. The slower Atom processors will keep well when filling out our e-forms, so the argument can be made that for Active Ink's purposes why "drive" a Enzo when an Elantra will do just fine. But a bigger display always means more usable work area, which in turn means less scrolling when filling out forms and faster times-to-completion. Those are always blessings.

You would think that with a markedly bigger screen and a faster processor, the Asus would be much heavier and run hotter than its competition. Not so. It weighs just 2 lbs 9 oz in its skivvies, compared to the CL900's 2 lbs 2 oz. And it ran cool and quiet in all our tests. So what are the EP121's defects? It must have some, right? Other than the short-battery life, we were hard pressed to find them, but we came up with the following:

It has no docking station or docking port (but bear in mind that its rivals' docks aren't very good),

it has no swappable battery (neither does the Motion or the HP),

it is not ruggedized like the Motion or the Fujitsu. You drop it, it'll break. (However, both of those other machines need a bump case or a folio case to be truly useful anyway and Asus gives you a nice one free.)

Bottom line: In spite of its lack of ruggedness and short battery life, we can't think of another device we'd rather slip into a briefcase and fill out Active Ink forms with than the Asus EP121.

N-Trig vs. Wacom -- the digitizer warstag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8342e90e053ef015391fb62ef970b2011-09-30T14:32:34-07:002011-10-14T11:49:10-07:00Active Ink is focused on one feature of tablet PCs more than any other -- we are obsessed with the look, feel, and performance of the stylus. Our monomania on the subject of styluses (styli?) can be traced to the...MB

Active Ink is focused on one feature of tablet PCs more than any other -- we are obsessed with the look, feel, and performance of the stylus. Our monomania on the subject of styluses (styli?) can be traced to the fact that our customers will primarily use handwriting, often cursive handwriting, to complete their electronic forms. If a customer's overall handwriting experience is poor, his satisfaction with his tablet and our software will be poor. As a result we demand a great stylus/handwriting experience and we have very high standards.

There are basically 5 methods for digitizing handwritten input on tablet PCs. They are:

Capacitive Touchscreens using your finger or an aftermarket "dumb" stylus -- This method is found on the Ipad, nearly all Android devices, and a few Windows tablets. It is cheap and it produces poor handwriting results regardless of whether one uses a finger or any ofthe rubbery aftermarket styluses that are available now. Currently, we cannot recommend ANY device that uses a capacitive touchscreen as its sole digitizer.

Resistive Touchscreens - This older technology can still produce precise input using "dumb" (non-powered) styluses because resistive styluses have narrow tips, not a fat, rubbery tips like capacitive styluses have. A resistive stylus must contact screen to register input, so you cannot float a cursor by hovering the stylus above the screen. Surface feel and pen pressure are typically a little stiffer with a resistive screen than with the N-trig and Wacom systems -- a bit like the feel of a pencil on notepaper -- but many users prefer this stiffer feel. Inexpensive, resistive screens are not as sensitive to finger-flick operations. This technology is only found on two Windows tablets at present -- the Asus t101mt and the Active Ink Scribe. But both of these devices work well with Active Ink and are recommended by us.

Optical Touchscreen Sensors - This technology, made by NextWindow, is found in kiosk devices, big screens, some peripheral devices for laptops and HP's Touchsmart desktops. It uses optical sensors which scan horizontally just above a screen's surface to triangulate the position of any object that comes in close proximity to the screen. It works well with Active Ink using any kind of pointer, but it's not currently found on tablets. That may be changing soon with the Ipad!

The N-Trig digitizer uses powered stylus with an internal battery, this system is currently found on the HTC Flyer, the HP Slate 500, the Fujitsu q550, and the Motion CL900. The N-trig system will float a cursor if the tip of the stylus is held just off the screen, but the tip of the N-trig stylus compresses slightly upon contact with the screen, giving it a spongy feel and imprecise feedback, especially when attempting to double click. We have found that the error rate when handwriting with any N-trig stylus is markedly greater than with the Wacom or resistive styluses. An N-trig system will work with Active Ink, but it is not preferred by us.

The Wacom digitizer - This older, familiar digitizer continues to used today by Motion Computing's higher end devices, as well as by the Asus Ep121. It remains the gold standard for electronic ink. This non-powered stylus does not have a piston-powered tip and will float a cursor when not in contact with the screen. The Wacom stylus is famed for its smooth and natural feel and it is still Active Ink's preferred digital pen.

Tablet PC manufacturers seem to be shying away from resistive touchscreens on their newer models, so the stylus-enabled tablet market is currently split between Wacom devices and N-Trig devices. N-trig seems to be capturing more of the low-end -- presumably because the N-trig technology is cheaper. Unfortunately, the N-trig technology is also inferior -- in our opinion. We've tested the N-trig system on three different devices so far: the HTC Flyer (an Android tablet), the HP Slate 500, and the Motion CL900. While each the styluses of all three can be used on any of the other three, we found that the inking experience varied quite a bit between the three, ranging from unacceptably bad on the HP 500, to mediocre on the Motion machine, to not-too-bad-at-all on the Flyer.

Why does the same system perform so differently on these three machines? We don't know. Perhaps it has something to do with various sensor screens used by each differently-sized machine. All we know is that even when it works well, we really wish it was a Wacom.

Our beefs with the N-trig system are simple. Their metal-tubed styluses are too short and too slick to hold comfortably, causing hand fatigue when used frequently. We have heard that an anodizing problem with the HP 500 stylus caused much of that device's frustrating errors, but we couldn't verify this. All three devices we tried had the same spongy tipped styluses that provided imprecise feedback, resulting in more frequent stray marks and more errors. All three had "flush-mounted" stylus buttons that were positioned in such a way that we frequently hit them by mistake.

All these ergonomic quirks resulted in the simple fact that it took us more time to complete a test form with the N-trig system than it did with a Wacom digitizer or a resistive touchscreen and we found ourselves preferring either one to the N-Trig system.

On a final note, regardless of their digitizing system, we constantly find ourselves turning OFF the touch capabilities of all the devices we use if we intend to do some heaving inking. When touch is enabled, we find that it results in more stray marks on our Active Ink forms. We recommend that you follow our lead as well. Turn off touch whenever you want to lay down a lot of ink with the stylus.

CAN I USE MY IPAD WITH ACTIVE INK?tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8342e90e053ef015433864713970c2011-07-06T15:20:18-07:002011-07-07T10:24:01-07:00We hear this question more than any other these days. Unfortunately, the answer is "no", you can't use an Ipad/Iphone with Active Ink and the reasons why you can't are somewhat insurmountable due to the Ipad's technical limitations. Allow me...MB

We hear this question more than any other these days. Unfortunately, the answer is "no", you can't use an Ipad/Iphone with Active Ink and the reasons why you can't are somewhat insurmountable due to the Ipad's technical limitations. Allow me to explain.

Active Ink is all about capturing information in a way that mimics our customers' natural use of a pen on paper. That's all we do -- we replace your existing paper forms with nearly perfect electronic clones and those e-forms eliminate your need to re-key information that has already been "captured" via recognizable handwriting. Since Active Ink enables your existing forms electronically in a natural manner, we are totally focused on the speed and accuracy of data input using natural methods. We don't like clunky work-arounds or multi-step processes that require the consumer's re-education.

Make no mistake -- we don't care who makes the device that enables natural input. If the Ipad were the fastest, easiest and most accurate data-inputter around, we'd be all over it like a linebacker on a fumble in the end-zone! Unfortunately, while the Ipad is an unsurpassed platform for DISPLAYING information, it's a pretty crude device for CAPTURING information. Here are the primary reasons why it is a poor data-capturing device in the mobile workplace:

1. The Ipad has no built-in handwriting recognition engine. Yes, there are apps such as Writepad that can recognize and convert handwriting within themselves, but there is no handwriting recognizer that interacts with the Ipad's OS, such as that found in Windows XP or Win 7 tablet editions. In Apple's defense, they probably didn't bother writing a handwriting recognition engine built in their OS because.....(see point 2)....

2. Precise stroke input is impossible with capacitive-screen tablets! And yes, the Ipad is a capacitive-screen tablet! By "stroke input" I mean the lines that you can produce when handwriting or drawing. Stroke precision with any capacitive tablet -- Ipad, Android, or Windows -- lags far behind what a resistive or active digitizing screen can produce. You can't get very precise because the device needs to feel the target of your big, fat finger (or its prosthetic mimic) to triangulate input using multiple sensors that are spaced relatively far apart. A fine-tipped stylus simply can't span the multiple capacitive sensors and therefore it doesn't work. To date we have found no capacitive stylus that is any more precise than using your finger and using your finger is an unnatural and unsatisfactory way to write, in our opinion.

The only "work-around" to this fine-tip obstacle is to blow your writing surface and your stroke size up to a huge font so your imprecise strokes are not so apparent. Only then can a writer generate the necessary loops and peaks in his script which handwriting recognition engines can recognize.

Not surprisingly, this is the handwriting method that all Ipad demos seem to use. They zoom everything up to huge proportions, using the Ipad's entire visible screen as their work surface. They write in huge fonts where only one or two words can fit in on screen per line. This is, of course, an unnaturally large way to write, so when they want their drawings and writing to appear "normal", they shrink the zoom back down to normal sizes.

This method may work, but in our opinion it is not natural input. It's akin to writing on a blackboard with chalk. Yes, you can produce huge readable letters on a huge writing service, but how long do you want to be writing on a blackboard? Ask any school teacher for the answer to that question.

So normal input is the main problem with the Ipad, and by normal input we mean writing in sizes which approximate normal handwriting on paper, i.e. fonts that are smaller than 20 point. All of the apps for the Ipad/Iphone we've reviewed avoid this issue like the plague because you simply can't write on the Ipad's capacitive screen in a small/normal font. Take, for example, the following video which reviews WritePad, an app with handwriting recognition that is used for taking notes on the Ipad. This review actually begins with a disclaimer about the Ipad's shortcomings as an input device -- WritePad review.

Notice how the video shows input using both a fingertip and a stylus, but in each case the user writes IN GIANT STROKES using the whole screen. Also note that while WritePad has handwriting recognition within itself, it doesn't interface with the Ipad's OS or with other apps or the web browser. To do so, the user must "copy/paste" recognized text from WritePad into other applications -- a clunky, slow, multi-step process at best.

Of course, you can always type your text into a form using the Ipad's responsive virtual keyboard, but typing is not the input method preferred by most on-the-go tablet users. You can also build customized forms, brick by brick, using a few other commercial forms apps, but with these programs you are constrained to building your forms the way the programs want to build them, you can't take your existing forms and "convert" them into an electronic clone as Active Ink does.

Both of these methods may produce functional work-arounds, but a "work-around" is not the point in Active Ink's opinion. Instead of a "work-around", we seek to give you a "work-with". Active Ink works with your existing forms. It works with the natural ways you do business and with the devices and operating systems that are familiar to you. Active Ink is not a company that makes the mountain come to Muhammad. Active Ink comes to you and we try to do things the way you already do them.

Bottom Line: Until Apple gives us an Ipad 3 with more precise input sensors than are found on its current generation of capacitive-screen tablet, it will remain an inferior device for capturing information using electronic forms.

HP's TOUCHSMART DESKTOPS AS ACTIVE INK PLATFORMStag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8342e90e053ef01538faad565970b2011-07-05T10:49:55-07:002011-07-07T11:04:13-07:00Lately we have been skewering some HP products in this blog (see our review of the quickly-buried HP Slate 500 Windows tablet), but this doesn't reflect our overall attitude toward Hp's entire product line. We continue to use some of...MB

Lately we have been skewering some HP products in this blog (see our review of the quickly-buried HP Slate 500 Windows tablet), but this doesn't reflect our overall attitude toward Hp's entire product line. We continue to use some of their products in house, namely the tm2t convertible, and we believe that HP's new Touchpad could offer interesting possibilities as an Active Ink webforms platform. However, since the Touchpad runs webOS, not Windows, we won't be testing it any time soon.

And we can proudly tell you that HP's Touchsmart desktops -- the 310, 610, and IQ816 -- all make very good platforms for running Active Ink's Form Designer and Form Filler software in an office environment. With their large screens (20", 23", 25.5") that use Next Window Limited's optical touch screen technology and Microsoft's familiar Windows 7 tablet PC interface, handwriting on them is a breeze since our Active Ink input fields are naturally zoomed up to a very large size and their input precision is so high. The displays can also be reclined to write on and while they don't have palm recognition ability, they do have four point mutli-touch capability. You must be careful not to rest your palm on the screen when writing on it, but we found that by dragging the MS tablet input window down to the bottom of the screen (a natural place to leave it anyway) you can rest your palm on the bottom frame and write very comfortably.

In fact, this is probably the easiest device to write on with a pen that we've ever tested simply because the large screens give you so much work room nothing ever feels cramped or crowded. And the ability to recline the screen into a semi-flat position to facilitate writing on it is a big plus over HP's early Touchsmart models which did not recline. We found ourselves yearning for this same touchscreen technology in a tablet size, but sadly Next Windows currently only produces large screen displays.

Get this -- Next Window's optical technology requires NO SPECIAL STYLUS to function! A fingertip, a pen-cap, a pencil, a credit card edge, a Mont Blanc fountain pen, or any existing Wacom or N-trig stylus -- all engage the Next Window optical sensors and produce precise input. Naturally, you should not use anything that will stain or scratch the screen, but our point is that no special stylus is needed to move the cursor around or handwrite with this technology! Nor does the user have to press very hard as with some resistive touchscreens. For our purposes, the Touchsmart was responsive and delight to use. We salivated at the thought of throwing away our Wacom input pads and drawing directly on-screen in Photoshop using Wacom's own styluses. No more having to draw two feet off to the side of our screens while maintaining proper vertical and horizontal orientation!

Not everyone will appreciate these devices and the home owner who doesn't need to integrate his handwriting into a program like Active Ink probably couldn't care less. But Active Ink or Photoshop users will immediately see benefits from using such a device in an office setting. Most of our customers still need a portable tablet to fill out their Active Ink forms, but for those situations when portability isn't such an issue -- say in a doctor's office waiting room or as a form-designing workstation -- these all-in-one deskstops are the cat's whiskers! And they are as cheap, if not cheaper than tablets. The 20" 310 can be had for around $650, the 23' 610 starts at $850.

Bottom Line:HP's inexpensive Touchsmart all-in-one desktop computers work extremely well as Active Ink platforms in situations where mobility is not required, thanks to Next Window's innovative optical touchscreen technology.

WHY DO CAPACITIVE-SCREEN TABLETS FAIL AS ACTIVE INK PLATFORMS?tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8342e90e053ef01543361744d970c2011-07-05T09:01:04-07:002011-07-05T11:01:42-07:00In our recent spate of tablet testing to see which units make satisfactory platforms for Active Ink software, we noticed a few salient points. One, our software doesn't use very much memory or CPU power, so a tablet does not...MB

In our recent spate of tablet testing to see which units make satisfactory platforms for Active Ink software, we noticed a few salient points. One, our software doesn't use very much memory or CPU power, so a tablet does not be the top of the line to be a very satisfactory Active Ink platform. This is good news, because our customers can buy cheaper tablets than they otherwise might consider.

The second discovery we made was that ALL the "capacitive-screen" tablets we tested failed to meet our benchmark for a satisfactory Active Ink platform. This is devastating news for the economical consumer because the vast majority of inexpensive tablets coming onto the market are capacitive screen devices.

Please bear in mind that when I say "capacitive-screen" tablets, I'm referring to touch-only capacitive tablets, not machines that also employ N-Trig or Wacom digitizing technology. These N-Trig and Wacom tablets usually work quite well for our purposes, but they are currently few in number, including: the HTC Flyer, Asus ep121, Fujitsu Q550 (at left), Motion CL-900, and HP Slate 500. They should be considered in a different category than the "touch-only" capacitive screens that bear the brunt of my wrath in this post.

In the category of "touch-only" capacitive tablets I include the Ipad, most Android devices, and a number of inexpensive Windows tablets. They usually do not ship with a stylus, nor are they meant to be used with one although a number of aftermarket manufacturers (including Targus, Wacom, & Rocketfish) produce capacitive styluses for use with them. Regardless of their other merit-worthy features, the downfall of these devices lies in the imprecision of their handwriting input using these aftermarket styluses. Simply put, it sucks.

This is why -- capacitive screens triangulate a touch point when a big fat finger tip (or its prosthetic mimic) spans several sensors and therefore a fine tip stylus simply cannot work because it does not span a number of sensors. You can, of course, write with your fingertip or its rubbery prosthetic mimic, but doing so is only a marginally-successful and unsatisfying exercise. The current crop of capacitive styluses generally employ spongy, rubbery tips that are only slightly smaller than a pinky. Sensory feedback is poor, and in most cases these stubby pens produce only a vague fascimile of your natural handwriting in which most of your normal loops, peaks and crests are flattened. Without clear definition to your script, Active Ink and Microsoft's handwriting recognition engine has no contours to work with and recognition errors soar. When errors soar, handwritten fragments must be corrected or rewritten many times -- and the time-to-completion of any given form multiplies exponentially.

At the same time, user frustration levels go through the roof with capacitive screens and styluses. In our tests, the experienced tablet user who knows how "old school" tablet PC's with active digitizers can perform, will discard a capacitive screen device and its rubbery after-market stylus in seconds, declaring the whole experience useless and not worth any marginal money savings. The novice users experienced the same dissatisfaction, but they usually didn't understand why their results were so poor and often they blamed the software when the true cause lay with the inescapable imprecision of the capacitive stylus and the screen.

Let me be clear in stating at this point that Active Ink has not yet tested all touch-only capacitive tablets or all capacitive stylus. We've only tested a few of the "good" ones -- the ones that other reviewers thought were a notch above the rest. But in the end this made no difference -- even the "good" ones failed to pass our muster. All have fat imprecise tips.

If you poke around a bit for reviews of Ipad styluses you will occasionally find Youtube raves for certain pens, declaring how wonderful they are for writing in certain art apps. But when you look closer you see that these demos are using the Ipad's full screen with giant 72 pt font sizes. This is akin to writing your name in beach sand with a walking stick. At these zoom levels, imprecision quibbles disappear because the writing surface and fonts employed are so big. But does anyone actually write business correspondence at one word per Ipad screen? A walking stick might make a good writing implement on the beach, but how does it perform with 10 pt fonts on an 8 1/2 by 11 inch piece of paper? In our opinion, these Ipad-as-a-handwriting platform reviews are simply ridiculous.

Once again, the critical test criterion with any test platform is one of speed of input. We test all our hardware testbeds using a standard form that our technicians can fill out on an "old school" Motion Computing F5 in about 35 seconds. Of course, this is a very subjective test which is highly dependent on the user. Users with better handwriting can fill out the form faster on every machine, even the touch-only capacitive screens. But regardless of the user, our test results on these capacitive screen testbeds soared to triple or quadruple the times required by active digitizers. In some cases, users simply refused to complete the test because their error and recognition rates were so high it was clear that no one would use the device.

Bottom Line: Active Ink has seen NO touch-only capacitive screen tablets or styluses that it can recommend as platforms for the filling out of Active Ink forms. All units we have tested fall so far below our basic standard of acceptability that we believe it is pointless to even consider a device that does not also employ the N-trig or Wacom digitizing styluses. (Even some of those N-trig devices -- namely the HP Slate 500 -- did not pass our muster.) Given their inherent limitations and unless significant technological improvements occur, we will decline to test touch-only capacitive tablets in the future.